NBAWeird But True

There Is A 43-Year-Old Freshman Basketball Player At Geneva College

The average freshman college basketball player is 18 years old, probably because the average graduating high schooler is 18 years old and college comes directly after high school. Well, usually. Because when Brian Rice graduated high school in 1987 with multiple basketball scholarship offers, he chose the navy instead. And he was quite the self-aware 18-year-old, which, in this case, is not an oxymoron. Claiming that he just wasn’t mature enough to get up every day and go to class in the morning, he joined the Navy.

For the next 24 and a half years, he served in our nation’s military. Then, at 43, he decided he was finally mature enough for college and enrolled at Geneva College in Pennsylvania. But he still had the basketball itch, so he found his way onto the school’s team through the current head coach at Rice’s high school. Now Geneva College has a 6-2, 43-year-old freshman basketball player.

And no, he’s not playing very many minutes, having played a total of 23 minutes in five games. As much as we’d like to poke fun at him because HAHA OLD PEOPLE, this is actually a pretty cool story. So good for you, Brian Rice.

[Thunder Treats]

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